


does it legally count as kidnapping if it's for your own good, asking for a friend

by beradan, follow_the_sun



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, but it sparks joy, maybe a very small ficlet, not actually a fic, plotbunny free to a good home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26891401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beradan/pseuds/beradan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/follow_the_sun/pseuds/follow_the_sun
Summary: As the saying goes, it takes a village to resocialize two overdramatic rich kids who need therapy.And who need to stop calling everyone peasants.("Where did you think cabbages came from?""From...the shop?""No! Keep weeding.")
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Cabbage Man (Avatar) & Other(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	does it legally count as kidnapping if it's for your own good, asking for a friend

**Author's Note:**

> So two things happened in the almost ten years since the first time I (beradan) watched ATLA: follow_the_sun wrote a fic involving time travel and interventionary kidnapping, and I graduated from "I mean they're not _that_ much younger than I am" to "oh no they're all children."
> 
> I'm just saying, the Fire Nation heirs could do with a life-changing kidnapping field trip.

Consider: the Cabbage Man, that weary peddler of unglamorous brassicas, tossed about by an uncaring universe for the fleeting entertainment of attentive viewers, is, in fact, a spy.

(As long as his papers are in order, nobody particularly notices the man standing around on street corners and traveling between cities with a conveniently large cart.*

*Unless they need cabbages.**

**Or they just want to cause chaos.)

A spy who kidnaps the junior heirs of the Fire Nation right about the time that Prince Lu Ten falls at the Siege of Ba Sing Se, thereby creating a succession crisis.

(Prince Ozai, the dutiful mouthpiece of his dying father, announces the Fire Lord's wish that the Dragon of the West rescue his remaining grandchildren from the criminals' clutches. Anyone who thinks the broken siege meant the war might end is a fool at best and a traitor at worst.)

...A spy who might have preferred the universe where someone kidnaps a couple of small children, but who is instead now stuck with two flammable preteens with Opinions.

(Earthbender? Chi-blocker? Maybe he just got very, very lucky.)

That's the kind of logistical challenge that requires the containment efforts of at least one (1) entire spy cell and an unflappable village in the middle of nowhere.

(Earth Kingdom? Water Tribe? Undercover Air Nomad refugee community?)

As the saying goes, it takes a village to resocialize two overdramatic rich kids who need therapy.

And who need to stop calling everyone peasants.

("Where did you think cabbages came from?"  
"From...the shop?"  
"No! Keep weeding.")

Fortunately for the rest of the world, they've got several years to work on these two before another pair of siblings break open an iceberg and find an Avatar who needs to learn firebending. How convenient.

**Author's Note:**

> The original idea was "what if someone went back in time and kidnapped the small and not-yet-traumatized Fire Nation heirs for their own good," and then, as ideas do, it got slightly out of hand.
> 
> Plotbunny free to a good home: you're welcome to steal/adapt/remix/pick out the marshmallows and leave the rest behind, just please link back.
> 
> Bonus scenes from follow_the_sun:  
> "What if Cabbage Man is an air monk who survived everything and is now in deep cover? Possibly he got thrown out of the air monks for being too passionate about cabbages. I mean, it writes itself."  
> "Obviously, in my world Iroh falls in love with spy/cabbage man, but you know."  
> "You've seen that post where Zuko and Toph come up with the idea that if you normally cook food at 350 for an hour then you can cook it at 3500 and be done in a minute? That, but everything they've never had to do for themselves before. You don't have servants to do the laundry? That sounds fake but OK."


End file.
